By Dale Robertson |
September 16, 2008

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Travis Johnson’s expansive home in Missouri City’s Estates of Silver Ridge suffered what he called “an almost unexplainable amount of damage” from the cruel, capricious fury of Hurricane Ike in the wee hours Saturday morning.

Once the roof came off, several ceilings collapsed and sheets of rain poured in. For a while, Johnson and his wife and young children took refuge in a closet, hoping for the best.

So, the Texans’ mammoth defensive tackle was asked after the team’s first post-Ike practice Tuesday if it’s going to be difficult for him to focus on playing football anytime soon?

No, he said. Is he disheartened? Absolutely. Is he distracted? Absolutely not.

“This is what bought me the house in the first place,” Johnson said. “This is my job. To be a professional, you’ve got to take the good with the bad. We’re blessed to be able to come out here and enjoy our teammates, our friends.

“There’s a lot of stuff I’ve got to figure out, but I’ll be all right. It was sad to see my house like that. You work to have the American dream, to have a nice house, a car, two dogs and a cat. To see it destroyed, it’s kind of disheartening. But you’ve got to pick yourself up.”

That was a universal theme for Texans players, coaches and executives as they returned to work after an unnerving and ill-timed four-day hiatus caused by one of the most devastating natural disasters ever to strike the area. Conspicuously lost in the tempest was the scheduled home opener against the Baltimore Ravens, a chance to seek redemption for an ugly season-opening defeat in Pittsburgh.

Instead, the Texans must confront the reality of having to play 15 weeks in a row — and away from Houston the next two Sundays. Against a backdrop of rumbling 18-wheelers and blaring police sirens (a major disaster-relief staging area has been established nearby), their forlorn-looking deflated practice bubble and the gap-toothed retractable roof of Reliant Stadium, they began preparing for their trip to Nashville to play the Tennessee Titans.

“It’s going to be very challenging for us,” quarterback Matt Schaub said, “but it’s something that, collectively, we can get done. If we rally around each other, we can accomplish some great things. When we’re between the white lines or in the meeting rooms, we (need to) focus on what it takes for us to be successful, which will not only be therapeutic for us but also for the city and our fans.

“Once we get outside this facility and go back home, that’s when we can think about — those personal things we have to deal with.”

The Texans’ new normal is an imperfect environment, one that’s clearly less than conducive to tackling a nemesis in the Titans to whom they’ve lost in 10 of 12 previous meetings. Yet, as general manager Rick Smith reminded, “That’s the hand we’ve been dealt, and we’ve got to work through it.”

Ike didn’t bring tragedy to anyone in the Texans’ extended family, just a thousand irritations — some major, most minor. They’re dealing with the same problems as most of the area’s population — whether it’s a lack of electricity or no fuel for their cars or a lot of spoiling food in the fridge or toppled tree trunks resting on rooftops.

Mario’s home smashed

A mighty pine bashed into defensive end Mario Williams’ new Memorial-area home and the roof of his mother’s home in Sugar Land flew off. Owner Bob McNair may be a billionaire entrepreneur/businessman, but he wasn’t spared Ike’s ravages, either. His River Oaks mansion has no power and many beautiful old trees on the property have been lost. At least one of them is resting on his roof, too.

But, like Johnson, McNair hadn’t lost his perspective.

“It’s such a tremendous tragedy,” he said. “The breadth of the storm — it was as big as the state of Texas. We’d never experienced anything like that. The people in Galveston and the Bolivar Peninsula took the brunt of it, much more than we in Houston did. Our hearts go out to them. All we have to do is clean up the debris and repair our houses, but many lost everything.”

McNair concedes that football, despite all he personally has invested in it, is suddenly a secondary concern.

“It’s a distraction and one that should be a distraction because there’s human loss involved,” he said. “We should be concerned about that. But everyone has come together. We appreciate the security, the fire departments and the police departments. We’re all in the same boat with the loss of power. Very few of us have any. As the old saying goes, ‘You don’t appreciate the water until the well goes dry.’ You flip the switch and nothing happens. That’s a reminder.

“But a lot people lived in this country for a long time without power and running water, and they did just fine. So I’m sure we’ll work our way through this.”

As Johnson suggested, it shouldn’t be that hard.

“I can’t do anything about what happened,” tight end Owen Daniels said, “so all I can do now is focus and get ready for Sunday.”

Before Ike struck, the admitted weather junkie had confessed the prospect of experiencing his first hurricane excited him. Daniels now understands the folly of that thinking, after his home also took some nasty blows.

Place of refuge

But Daniels never lost electricity, so he became a popular destination or, as he called it, “a house of refuge” for perspiring teammates – if not an extended-stay option.

“With my guestroom ruined,” he said, “there’s really no place to sleep except the couches downstairs.”

More than one Texan insisted the team could profit from its shared misery by pulling closer. Receiver Andre Johnson said he’d also welcome teammates “hanging out” at his Bellaire house, which wasn’t damaged and has electricity.

“We’ve been calling around, checking on each other and making sure everyone was OK,” Johnson said. “It’s difficult. All we can do is just help each other as much as we can. And help other people around our neighborhoods, too, if they need it.”

The scope of the disaster fully hit home for Johnson when he approached the stadium and saw the gaping holes where roof sections had been. Being from Florida, he had experienced a hurricane’s fury before, but, he admitted, “It was bad, worse that what I thought it would be. It’s a devastating time.”